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City down to 217 known active cases

Declining COVID-19 indicators are welcome news, health minister says

Feb 23, 2022 | 4:34 PM

Health Minister Jason Copping says that after a difficult fifth wave of COVID-19 through the winter almost all COVID-19 indicators are trending downward.

Today’s positivity rate is about 27 per cent, down close to 14 percentage points from last week and there are about 68 per cent fewer active cases today compared to the beginning of February, Copping said.

“This is very welcome news,” he said during today’s mid-week update.

The number of Albertans in hospital with or due to COVID-19 was 1,500, of which 121 were in ICU. Those numbers are down to 1,373 and 90, respectively.

Copping said the health system remains in a strong position as the province gets past the Omicron wave and works to improve access and reduce wait times.

As the fifth wave subsides and the easing of more measures is to be announced this weekend, Copping said some continue to be concerned about protecting themselves from the virus.

“But the science is clear. The single most effective way to protect ourselves and each other is by getting vaccinated,” he said, adding that includes booster doses. He said 86.8 per cent of adult Albertans have received at least two doses of vaccine, only 44.9 per cent have received their third dose.

The minister said getting more Albertans vaccinated is one of his priorities and announced increased access to vaccination for children aged five to 11 years old.

There are now 1,373 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 90 of which are in ICU, and 3,883 deaths.

An AHS spokesperson told CHAT News Wednesday that there are currently 105 COVID-19 positive inpatients in the South Zone with 10 of those in the ICU. There are 27 inpatients at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital with three COVID-19 positive patients in the ICU.

Chinook Regional Hospital has 47 inpatients with seven in the ICU. Brooks Health Centre has nine inpatients; Taber Health Centre has six; Pincher Creek Health Centre has four; Crowsnest Pass Health Centre has two; Bassano Health Centre, Big Country Hospital, and Cardston Health Centre have one each.

There are 217 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 in Medicine Hat on Wednesday.

Medicine Hat has had 6,873 confirmed total cases – the 217 active, 6,571 recovered and there have been 85 deaths, one new since Friday.

There are 67 new confirmed cases in the city and 163 new recoveries reported from the last full update on Friday.

With the province limiting testing in the fifth wave, these confirmed cases do not accurately reflect the number of cases in the community.

Among all Medicine Hat residents, 78.3 per cent have received one dose of vaccine, 74.3 per cent have received two doses and 34.3 per cent have received three doses.

There are 11,189 known active cases in the province, down 4,195 since the last update on Friday, and 508,032 recovered cases in the province, up 7,276.

There have been 31,365 cases of the Omicron variant identified in Alberta, up from 28,620 at the update on Friday. Of those, 1,546 cases are in the South Zone.

Alberta’s total cases from the start of the pandemic is 523,104.

There are 3,134 new cases confirmed in the province since the Friday update.

Again these are only the confirmed cases and do not accurately reflect the number of cases in the province.

The province completed 12,702 tests since Friday.

The positivity rate for the period is about 24.7 per cent.

Alberta has administered 8,478,187 doses of vaccine at the latest update.

In the last seven days, COVID was the primary or a contributing factor in 69.2 per cent of non-ICU hospitalizations and 85 per cent of ICU admissions.

Among new cases today, 28.6 per cent are unvaccinated, 2.3 per cent have had one dose, 30.2 have had two doses and 38.9 per cent have had three doses.

Among current hospitalizations, 30.3 per cent are unvaccinated, 5.2 per cent have had one dose, 35.3 per cent have had two doses and 29.39 per cent have had three doses.

Among Alberta’s total population, 80.8 per cent have received at least one dose of vaccine and 75.7 per cent have received two doses 35.1 per cent have received three doses.

There are 13 city outbreaks listed on the AHS website, including the Medicine Hat Regional Hospital and Medicine Hat Remand Centre. There are three listed outbreaks in Brooks, three in Taber and two in Oyen.

There are 1,520 known active cases and 31,978 recovered in the South Zone. The death total in the zone is at 337.

The province-wide reproductive value for the week of Jan. 31-Feb. 13 is 0.76. It is 0.72 in Calgary Zone, 0.78 in Edmonton Zone and 0.79 in the rest of Alberta.

At the last update from Jan. 24-30, the numbers were 1.00 in the province, 1.04 in Calgary Zone, 0.96 in Edmonton Zone and 0.98 in the rest of Alberta.

Cypress County has totaled 1,135 confirmed cases. There are 17 active cases, 1,112 recovered and six deaths. 70.6 per cent of all residents have one dose of vaccine, 67.1 per cent have two doses and 26.5 per cent have had three doses.

The County of Forty Mile has 417 total confirmed cases. There are 10 active cases, 402 recovered and there have been five deaths. 44.1 per cent of all residents have one dose of vaccine, 41 per cent have two doses and 16.4 per cent have had three doses.

The MD of Taber has 1,612 total confirmed cases — 31 active cases, 1,563 recovered and there have been 18 deaths. 51.3 per cent of all residents have one dose of vaccine, 48.6 per cent have two doses and 19.8 per cent have had three doses.

Special Areas No. 2 has 342 total confirmed cases – eight active cases, 329 recovered and there have been five deaths.

Brooks has 2,616 total confirmed cases — 44 active cases and 2,542 are recovered. Brooks has recorded 30 deaths.

The County of Newell has a total of 645 confirmed cases — 18 active cases, 618 recovered and there have been nine deaths. 70.8 per cent of all residents have one dose of vaccine, 66.3 per cent have two doses and 23.6 per cent have had three doses. County of Newell vaccination numbers include Brooks and part of Special Areas No. 2.

The County of Warner has 1,064 total confirmed cases. There are 45 active cases, 1,013 are recovered cases and there have been six deaths in the county. 63.5 per cent of all residents have one dose of vaccine, 58.7 per cent have two doses and 22.6 per cent have had three doses.

The City of Lethbridge has a total of 11,349 confirmed cases. There are 430 active cases, 10,835 recovered and there have been 84 deaths. Lethbridge County has 2,591 confirmed cases, 100 active cases, 2,470 recovered and there have been 21 deaths.

Again these are only the confirmed cases and do not accurately reflect the number of cases in the regions.

Not all the areas on the vaccination data map match the case count map.

The figures on alberta.ca are “up-to-date as of end of day Feb. 22, 2022.

Beginning on Feb. 7, Saskatchewan is only updating its data on Thursdays. Data can be found here.